oh really? oh, someone noticed after 15 years plus of solid manipulation of the worst fucking index of all time, called SPX? really?
the ultimate fudge index and the guys who do the listings? shooting targets one day I suspect.
The Illusion of Strength: ~80% of the S&P 500 is Already in a Bear Market!
Currently, the S&P 500 presents a dangerous illusion of strength. While the index hovers just 4.4% from its all-time high, a staggering ~80% of its member stocks are languishing in a bear market, down significantly from their peaks.
This is a tale of two markets: a hyper-concentrated bubble in a handful of “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks that include Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (formerly Google), Amazon, META (formerly Facebook), and Tesla, and a stealth bear market for the aggregate other 493 companies.
How much of the S&P 500 do the Magnificent Seven account for? The Mag-7 accounts for 35.0% of the S&P 500 as of Nov. 17, 2025. That’s nearly 3X as much as in 2015, when they made up 12.3% of the S&P 500. From 2015 to 2024, these seven companies achieved a ~700% return, easily outperforming the S&P 500.
All of these companies have grown rapidly over the last decade, and they all currently have a market cap of more than $1 trillion. As they’ve grown, their combined value has made up a larger, and some would say very concerning, portion of the S&P 500.
This extreme divergence, driven by the A.I. boom and market-cap weighting mechanics, has created the most dangerous and fragile market in history.
The authorities are in a desperate battle to keep the illusion alive. How long they can, remains to be seen, but when it eventually shatters, the only true safe haven will be the one asset class that sits outside this fragile, financialized system: precious metals.
The Mechanics of the Illusion: Why the Index is Not in a Bear MarketThe main reason for this glaring discrepancy is that the S&P 500 is a market-capitalization-weighted index. This means that the performance of the largest companies has a much greater effect on the index’s overall movement than the smaller companies.
A small number of mega-cap tech stocks; Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla, have posted substantial gains in 2024 and 2025, buoyed by the A.I. boom and investor enthusiasm.
Their gains have been so significant that they have propped up the entire index, masking the fact that the vast majority of member stocks are experiencing declines.
This has created a dangerously bifurcated market. On one side, you have a powerful “A.I. bubble” that has driven the rally in a small group of stocks, which have accounted for the lion’s share of the index’s returns.
On the other side, you have a “stealth bear market” where the majority of sectors and smaller companies have seen their stocks fall considerably from their peaks. This is confirmed by weakening market breadth, a measure of how many stocks are participating in a move.
While there were periods in the first half of 2025 where market breadth widened and the “S&P 493” carried the market, the second half has seen a dramatic narrowing, with the Magnificent Seven once again dominating. When breadth is deteriorating, it is a classic sign of market fragility.
This internal market weakness is happening against a backdrop of growing concerns about the real economy, including sticky inflation, tariffs, a moderating labor market, flat job growth, declining consumer sentiment, and softening consumer spending.
The market seems to be running on fumes, and the strategists at major firms are sounding the alarm. Bank of America, for example, has warned that the S&P 500 is showing elevated risk levels, with several of their “bear market signposts” being triggered.
The writing appears to be on the wall, but the market, mesmerized by the gains of a few, refuses to read it.
So, Let’s Dig into The Following:- the magnificent few and the forgotten 400+
- the psychology of a bubble, why no one sees it coming, and market cycles
- when the levee breaks
- 100% a crisis of correlation
- and more…...
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